Sport is one of the most demanding and entertaining aspects of life. Everyday there is some sporting event going on around the world and people tune in to see their favourite sports stars week in, week out. However, could there ever be a time that real sports will be replaced by virtual ones?
What are virtual sports?
The term virtual sports means a computer generated simulation of sports used for betting purposes. Some betting houses use this system as a way of promoting more in house betting for customers. The first sport that grabbed the attention of the customer was horse racing.
Giuseppe Donato, for Kiron Interactive, stated “Virtual sports use the latest CGI technology and a proprietary physics engine to capture the vitality of their real sport counterparts and deliver entertaining and visually appealing content to your customers.”
Has it taken off?
Horse racing is one of the most popular sports in the betting industry and it was a huge success for betting companies to include the virtual sports of horse racing. Since then, between 2016 to 2021, the market grew from 121 million people up to 307 million people across all different sports.
What sports can you bet on?
It is not just horse racing that you can bet on but all different sports you can think of. The most popular sports are American Football, tennis and football. However, there is no end to the different sports you can bet on.
Why is it so popular?
It is so popular because it is so accessible. You do not have to wait all the time for virtual sports, they are continuous, and customers enjoy the fact they can bet on them around the clock.
There are also better odds-on virtual sports than there is in sports played by humans because they follow more of the form guide. There is an average of 15 to 30% of turnover in retail betting shops, whilst 5-10% of sports betting turnover online is on virtual sports.
Are virtual sports rigged?
According to this article – Is Virtual Racing Fixed?-from Newbettingsites.uk, there is a lot of speculation as to the question are virtual sports rigged because it is a simulated game. However, they are just like casino slot games where the Random Number Generators so there is no evidence that these machines are rigged because they are tightly monitored and follow all the correct regulations put in place. So there is no way that they can be rigged.
Could it ever replace real sports?
If you asked this 30 years ago then you might have been laughed out of the room but now with sports including more and more technology in their game, it is not hard to imagine virtual sports challenging “real life” sports at a better level. VAR has dominated in football, hawk eye is used in tennis and cricket relies heavily on the third umpire.
Could we be hoping that England are going to win the virtual World Cup built by a computer rather than the World Cup played by human beings? Who knows!